Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 189 Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni quotes for you to read and share.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000002462
She did understand about sacrificing values for the sake of love. It was a lesson all mothers had to memorize. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000010497
The ancient world is always accessible, no matter what culture you come from. I remember when I was growing up in India and I read the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey.' -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000018335
My mother clutches at the collar of my shirt. I rub her back and feel her tears on my neck. It's been decades since our bodies have been this close. It's an odd sensation, like a torn ligament knitting itself back, lumpy and imperfect, usable as long as we know not to push it too hard. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000039829
Made to the other women when I joined them at night. The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don't get attached to them. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041347
Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041348
I broke the first rule, the unwritten one, meant not just for warriors but all of us: I took love and used it as a balm to soothe my ego. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041349
It's never really easy to be successful as a writer when you're trying to write literary fiction. You've already limited your readership limited by that choice. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041350
I am a Hindu, brought up mostly in India. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041351
If it is good literature, the reader and the writer will connect. It's inevitable. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041352
And the mother, who through all the years of her hardship had never shed a tear, wept at his trust and her deception. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041353
Each day has a color, a smell. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041354
Expectations are like hidden rocks in your path , All they do is trip you up -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041355
As a writer, I have to show complexities. Through my writings, I hope to bring out people in different situations and not just one-dimensional beings. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041356
She lifts a bowl of kheer and her thoughts, flittering like dusty sparrows in a brown back alley, turn a sudden kingfisher blue. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041357
O exhilaration, I thought. To be lifted up through the eye of chaos, to balance breath-stopped on the edge of nothing. And the plunge that would follow, the shattering of my matchstick body to smithereens, the bones flying free as foam, the heart finally released. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041358
I thought that if lokas existed at all, good women would surely go to one where men were not allowed so that they could be finally free of male demands. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041359
I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy. I would use my strength instead to nurture my belief that my life would unfurl uniquely. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041360
Wisdom that isn't distilled in our own crucible can't help us. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041361
I'm a very senses-oriented person, and I want to bring readers in on the level of the senses, so they can experience another culture and another place. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041362
Aren't we all pawns in the hands of time, the greatest player of them all? -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041363
Don't create snakes out of ropes. You have enough to worry about. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041364
I realise that a novel and a film are different mediums. As artistes, we need to respect other artistes. It also needs a lot of courage to take risks to experiment and interpret known literary works. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041365
I work very hard at creating complex characters, a mix of positives and negatives. They are all flawed. I believe flaws are almost universal, and they help us understand, sympathise and, paradoxically, feel closer to such characters. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041366
After 9/11, there was so much distress in America that it led to an inter-cultural breakdown. Some of our communities were targeted. Many of our adults shut themselves off from other cultures. I tried to bring children of Indian and other cultures together in my literature. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041367
The Mahabharata might have been a great and heroic battle, but there are no winners. The losers, of course, lose. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041368
Can our actions change our destiny? Or are they like sand piled against the breakage in a dam, merely delaying the inevitable? -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041369
It feels as though it were just yesterday Grandfather exited my life like a bullet, leaving a bleeding hole behind. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041370
Everytime i have turned the page he re-enters my life as awkward as postscript -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041371
I hate it when people throw away food - I've seen too many hungry people. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041372
I had friends who died in the 9/11 tragedy; some of my friends lost family members in the aftermath of Godhra. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041373
And under it all, earth waited with her lead-filled veins, impatient to shrug herself clean. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041374
I want people to be sensitive about how women feel and think. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041375
Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you'll spend your life yearning for a man you can't have. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041376
My grandfather was a very strong personality. He certainly ruled his household with an iron fist, even though it was often gloved in velvet! -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041377
The dream is not a drug but a way. Listen to where it can take you. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041378
Truth, like diamond, has many facets. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041379
With the strong women I write about, I want to create a sense of strong possibilities. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041380
I have been watching how Indian women are forced to do certain things, as the stories of sacrifice and devotion in mythology demand from them. And then there are inspiring stories about women like the Rani of Jhansi that offer women refreshing role models. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041381
The heart itself is beyond control. That is its power, and its weakness. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041382
Strong women, when respected, make the whole society stronger. One must be careful with such rapid changes, though, and make an effort to preserve, at the same time, the positive traditions of Indian culture. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041383
Fennel, which is the spice for Wednesdays, the day of averages, of middle-aged people ... Fennel ... smelling of changes to come. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041384
Why are you attracted to self-sabotage? I -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041385
A dream is a telegram from the hidden world ... Only a fool or an illiterate person ignores it. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041386
Loving someone so deeply was dangerous. It made you too vulnerable. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041387
'The Moonstone' was all I could have hoped for. A mysterious, cursed jewel, wrested from India, only to be stolen later from a great British mansion. Enigmatic, dangerous priests who follow it across the ocean in hopes of wresting it back. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041388
To upset the delicate axis of giving and receiving on which our lives are held precarious. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041389
To achieve important things, we have to sacrifice what's important to us. That's an idea that's very central to Indian thinking. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041390
I like being myself. Maybe just slimmer, with a few less wrinkles. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041391
I've long been interested in the tale-within-a-tale phenomenon. I'm familiar with many tales which use this framework or the device of many people in one place, telling their stories, or multiple storytellers commenting on each others' stories with their own. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041392
No, Ashok. Love is not a tap. It flows and flows like blood from a wound, and you can die of it. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041393
All of us groping in caverns, our fingertips raw against stone, searching for that slight crack, the edge of a door opening into love. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041394
Love. There's no argument, no matter how strong, that can overcome that word. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041395
Each book is a separate entity for me. When I'm writing it, I enter its world and inhabit its vocabulary. I forget, as it were, that I ever wrote anything else. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041396
Dissolving differences has always been an important motive for my writing, right from 'The Mistress of Spices.' -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041397
The darkness is a cresting wave. It sweeps me up out of my body until I float among the stars, those tine bright pores on the sky's skin. If only I could pass through them, I would end up on the other side, the right side, shadowless, perfectly illuminated, beyond the worries of this mundane world -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041398
I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable
but I always was so, only I never knew it! -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041399
I liked his voice, rich and unself-conscious even when he forgot words and hummed to fill in the gap. What I didn't understand, I imagined, and thus it became a love song. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041400
I find that it's really important for me to imagine characters and situations. That allows me a lot of freedom. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041401
I think writers from both East and West have long been fascinated by the ancient tales and the opportunity to reinterpret them. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041402
Often, writer's block will occur when I don't understand a character or his/her motivations. So I will make notes analysing characters. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041403
Time is the great eraser, both of sorrow and of joy. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041404
I have no particular reader in mind, but a passionate desire to tell an honest, moving story. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041405
America is a country formed by diverse communities from different countries. Overall, the country is very hospitable and gives opportunities to grow. Saying that, I'd also say I'm not a 'white' immigrant; a South Asian's experience is different than, say, a European immigrant's. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041406
India lends itself well to fictionalization, but ultimately, it all depends on the writer's imagination. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041407
She had always been this way: interested-quite unnecessarily, some would say-in the secrets of strangers. When flying, she always chose a window seat so that when the plane took off or landed, she could look down on the tiny houses and imagine the lives of the people who inhabited them. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041408
Everyone has a story. I don't believer anyone can go through life without encountering at least one amazing thing. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041409
Your childhood hunger is the one that never leaves you. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041410
Doesn't the imagination always exaggerate - or diminish - truth? -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041411
Try to remember that you are the instrument and I the doer. If you can hold on to this, no sin can touch you. Instrument, -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041412
Open yourself to the sight, and it will show you what you need to know. But never attempt to bend it to your will. Never pry into a particular life that has been brought to your care. That is to break trust. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041413
Can't you ever be serious?' I said, mortified.
'It's difficult,' he said. 'There's so little in life that's worth it. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041414
To me, characters are at the heart of great literature. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041415
Just as we cast off worn clothes and wear new ones, when the time arrives, the soul casts off the body and finds a new one to work out its karma. Therefore the wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041416
Or perhaps it is just that desire lies at the heart of human existence. When we turn away from one desire, we must find another to cleave to with all our strength
or else we die. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041417
If you look back at the great classics and the epics and myths, they were for everyone. Different people got different things from them, but everyone was invited to participate. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041418
In your yearning you have made me into that which I am not. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041419
Danger will come upon us when it will. We can't stop it. We can only try to be prepared. There's no point in looking ahead to that danger and suffering its effects even before it comes to us. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041420
I want to weep too, not for me but for us all
for rich or poor, educated or illiterate, here we are finally reduced to a sameness in this sisterhood of deprivation. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041421
Ii would no longer waste time on regret. I would turn my face to the future and carve it into the shape I wanted. - Panchali -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041422
I guess there's a lot we hope for that never happens. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041423
In community work, you reach some people, but in writing, I can reach many more people, not only in exploring issues of domestic violence, but also by showing the importance of strong women in communities. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041424
I write best late at night, when everyone in the house has gone to bed. There's something magical about that late night silence that appeals to me. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041425
As I've written more, and as other Indian American voices have grown around me, I strive harder to find experiences that are unique yet a meaningful and resonant part of the American story. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041426
After September 11, 2001, I was feeling like I really wanted more understanding between cultures. It seemed to me that so much of what happened on September 11 was because people didn't understand each other and were suspicious of each other. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041427
The mark of a wise man is that he changes his mind when he sees mistake. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041428
In many immigrant families, the parents are just talking and talking about the home country until the children are like, 'Oh, don't tell us any more.' -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041429
The choice they made in the moment of my need changed something in our relationship. I no longer depended on them so completely in the future. And when I took care to guard myself from hurt, it was as much from them as from our enemies. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041430
Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, our lives. Is that why we're fascinated by the steadfastness of stars? The water reaches my calves. I begin the story of the Pleiades, women transformed into birds so Swift and bright that no man could snare them. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041431
Because ultimately only the witness
and not the actors
knows the truth (Vyasa to Draupadi) -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041432
Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday, when light drips fat and butter-colored into the bins to be soaked up glowing, when you pray to the nine planets for love and luck. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041433
Or is this how humans survive, shrugging off history, immersing themselves in the moment? -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041434
I wrote 'Mistress of Spices' at an unusual time when I had a near-death experience after the birth of my second son. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041435
Push away the past, that vessel in which all emotions curdle to regret. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041436
May your heart be mine, may my heart be yours. May your sorrows be mine, may my joys be yours. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041437
Knowing yet not knowing is a strange sensation, like being split in two -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041438
I show women growing, changing, becoming stronger in many kinds of situations. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041439
Isn't that what truth is? The force of a person's believing seeps into those around him - into the very earth and air and water - until there's nothing else. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041440
I think, we all learned that when we are afraid it's easy to want to blame, and the people we want to blame are the people who don't look like us. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041441
Sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing as reality, an objective and untouched nature of being. Or if all that we encounter has already been changed by what we had imagined it to be. If we have dreamed it into being. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000041442
A book can be wonderful and powerful and accessible and artful all at the same time. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000075576
She lifts her eyes, and there is Death in the corner, but not like a king with his iron crown, as the epics claimed. Why, it is a giant brush loaded with white paint. It descends upon her with gentle suddenness, obliterating the shape of the world. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000104613
It is an Englishman who turns out to be the real villain of 'The Moonstone.' By contrast, the three Indian priests who dedicate their lives to returning the jewel to its proper home in the temple, though they have nothing personal to gain by doing so, are positively heroic. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000116965
Chili, spice of red Thursday, which is the day of reckoning. Day which invites us to pick up the sack of our existence and shake it inside out. Day of suicide, day of murder. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000170629
India has been a very accepting culture. We pride ourselves on that. That is a global truth. In fact, it forms a major theme in my books. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000234831
Words are tricky. Sometimes you need them to bring out the hurt festering inside. If you don't, it turns gangrenous and kills you ... But sometimes words can break a feeling into pieces. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000278346
I love visual art. I painted for many years when I was younger. I have studied modern/contemporary Indian art a bit and am very impressed with the talent in India. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000353205
Pain makes us crazy. All we want is to throw the live coal of it as far from us as we can, not thinking what we might set afire. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000388879
The wind blows through him, cleansing. Salt and distance, smell of the deep. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000407254
Because it is the lot of mothers to remember what no one else cares to, Mrs. Dutta thinks. To tell them over and over until they are lodged, perforce, in family lore. We are the keepers of the heart's dusty corners. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000470838
Above us our palace waits, the only one I've ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming again like fireflies in a summer evening. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000484536
Girls have to be toughened so they can survive a world that presses harder on women. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000526569
Hi mam I am Divya studying 2nd year English I am doing research about you so please tell me the relation of Anand in Conch series which compared to foreign culture -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000550504
I grew up in Kolkata in a traditional family. We had friends who lived in mansions just like the one in 'Oleander Girl.' Growing up, I was fascinated by the old house and the old Bengal lifestyle. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000579593
Looking back, I could not point to one special time and say, There! That's what is amazing. We can change completely and not recognize it. We think terrible events have made us into stone. But love slips in like a chisel - and suddenly it is an ax, breaking us into pieces from the inside. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000602388
I came from a traditional family, and it was an exciting but challenging transition to move to America and live on my own. The world around me was suddenly so different. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000602405
I've been interested in dreams myself for a long time, and it's a big part of the Indian tradition, especially where I was brought up in Calcutta in my family, which is quite traditional. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000624546
I interviewed a lot of people in India, and I asked my mother to send me a lot of Bengali books on the tradition of dream interpretation. It's a real way for me to remember how people think about things in my culture. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000635739
How can I forgive if you are not ready to give up that which caused you to stumble? -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000637632
A problem becomes a problem only if you believe it to be so. And often others see you as you see yourself. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000656911
Buddha's Wife tells a fascinating story, little known in the west, about the woman whom Buddha left behind. Gabriel Constans focuses the reader's attention on the strong and complicated women who surrounded Buddha and makes us re-think the nature of spiritual life. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000658136
Monday is the day of silence, day of the whole white mung bean, which is sacred to the moon. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000677800
Everyone breathes in air, but it's a wise person who knows when to use that air to speak and when to exhale in silence. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000707139
What is the most wondrous thing on earth? Each day countless humans enter the Temple of Death, yet the ones left behind continue to live as though they were immortal ... In -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000799550
Rakhi likes the comfortable clutter of her life, the things she loves gathered around her like a shawl against the winterliness of the world. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000853865
A kshatriya woman's highest purpose in life is to support the warriors in her life: her father, brother, husband and sons. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000864929
I have a lot of respect and love for children's books. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000871235
There is something in human beings that loves stories. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000876973
Pain, which is ultimately only like itself. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000945962
I closed my eyes and willed my breath to slow, my conscious mind to fold itself inward. I could feel heat pulsing from my daughter's head, her frantic thoughts whirling like broken glass. I loosened my hold on my body and dropped into that whirlpool. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000973891
Even the wisest don't know what's hidden in the depths of their being -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 000989266
This time I didn't launch into my usual tirade. Was it a memory of Krishna, the cool silence with which he countered disagreement, that stopped me? I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001035290
Sometimes what is 'real' because it takes place in the physical world, like 9/11, is so unreal on the level of the soul. Then other things, which in terms of the physical world seem so magical and unbelievable, on the level of the soul seem very real. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001044296
I took a little break after 'The Palace of Illusions' to clear my head. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001064567
I was caught on the freeway for hours when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. The entire city had to be evacuated. I observed lives threatened by catastrophes and a whole range of behaviour. What could people do during a crisis? -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001064998
When your heart is crusted over with your own pain, it is easy to feel little for others. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001075166
'The Mahabharata,' which inspired my novel 'Palace of Illusions,' also has many stories embedded within the main tale. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001086017
I started writing after the death of my grandfather - memories, poems, etc. It was very personal; for years I did not share my writing with anyone. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001102337
I have to believe in possibility. How else can we bear the enormous weight of life? -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001124373
They say in the old tales that when a man and woman exchange looks the way we did, their spirits mingle. their gaze is a rope of gold binding each other. even if they never meet again, they carry a little of the other with them always. they can never forget, and they can never be wholly happy again -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001126693
I came into Chicago in winter - I'd never been so cold in my life! I was very homesick, and a poor student at that time. America seemed so different and so filled with amazing things - and almost all of them were out of my reach. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001139305
In the white marble hall of the hotel, I'm waltzing with Rajat. The music is a river and we're dancing in it. It winds against our bodies, muscular as a serpent. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001145248
But inside loss there can be gain, too,like the small silver spider Bela had discovered one dewy morning, curled asleep at the center of a rose. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001173667
It's very important to balance things; it's imperative to do something for the society, and women in particular, and help women who aren't in position to help themselves. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001187921
Who held his cries in until red swam behind his eyelids like bleeding stars. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001214914
Unlike novels with a hero or two heroines, in 'One Amazing Thing,' all the characters tell stories they've never told anyone before, so all the voices become equally important. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001226771
To some extent, I draw on what I see around me; in other places, I imagine what I write. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001235490
You could also call it waking,' Krishna continues. 'Or intermission, as one scene in a play ends and the next hasn't yet begun. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001235981
I started putting down my thoughts on paper out of loneliness while I was studying in America. I was very close to my grandfather, and when he died, I couldn't visit home. I started scribbling those thoughts. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001260232
To make money for college, I worked in our college dining room. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001262893
I tried to hold on to this compassion, sensing its preciousness, but even as I reached to grasp it, it dissipated into wisps. No revelation can endure unless it is bolstered by a calm pure mind- and I'm afraid I didn't possess that. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001310713
As I remember my grandfather and those Christmas mornings he gave for a little girl's pleasure, I know that often a big life starts with doing small things. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001342021
She who sows vengeance must reap its bloody fruit. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001360412
Two great and terrible truths of war are these: War is easy to enter into, but difficult to end. And ultimately, in war there are no winners. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001369401
I was about 12 when I first encountered 'The Moonstone' - or a Classics Illustrated version of it - digging through an old trunk in my grandfather's house on a rainy Bengali afternoon. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001373571
How pride had kept them from admitting their mistakes - and -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001434006
In the things we love lie clues to who we are. What we want for those we love. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001438251
Each person is distinct, separate. That ultimately we are each alone -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001442483
I write in my study, where I also have my prayer altar. I believe that keeps me focused and gives me positive energy and reminds me that I'm merely the instrument of greater creative forces. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001442653
I was very fortunate that all my holidays I'd spend with my grandfather, experiencing a much more traditional way of life and listening to these wonderful stories, which I now feel are such an important part of Indian thinking. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001443308
Immigration was a huge force in changing my outlook. I moved to America 30 years ago. I had to reassess my beliefs, especially about women's roles. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001467146
In life, it's best not to take anything for free - unless it's from someone who wishes you well. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001467859
We even had a different word for Christmas in my language, Bengali: Baradin, which literally meant 'big day.' -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001536060
There was an unexpected freedom in
finding out that one wasn't as important as one had always assumed! -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001545001
By the time we're adults, our ideas have solidified. So I wanted to write for a younger audience, who would perhaps love heroes from other cultures. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001584276
I type everything on my computer. I carry a writer's notebook everywhere, in case I am struck by an idea. I forget things unless I write them down. I'm planning to learn how to dictate into my cellphone; I think that will be very helpful, too. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001586000
I'm too careful with money - comes out of being poor for several years while growing up. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001609377
But Krishna was a chameleon. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001614263
Each desire in the world is different, as is each love. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001632096
One of the things that I am learning is that each generation will have its own negotiations with identity. And one generation can not necessarily help the other generation with it. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001668206
I came to the plain fields of Ohio with pictures painted by Hollywood movies and the works of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. None of them had much to say, if at all, about Dayton, Ohio. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001680844
There is no conflict in looking good. You buy things you need, and then you do something good for society. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001686241
Hope not built on reason brings disappointment only. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001686716
When I was volunteering with Hurricane Katrina refugees in Houston in 2005, I first started thinking about the whole phenomenon of grace under pressure. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001690857
But maybe as I get older, I begin to see beauty where I least expected it before. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001693517
I don't put much stock in remembering things. Being able to forget is a superior skill. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001720159
I feel I can express the nuances of the Bengali lifestyle and ways of thinking better than other cultures. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001722321
That's how it is sometimes when we plunge into the depths of our lives. No one can accompany us, not even those who would give up their hearts for our happiness. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001725217
Sometimes
she knows this from her own life
to get to the other side, you must travel through grief. No detours are possible. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001749561
Tomorrow is another day. I've got plenty of things to worry about right now. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001767716
A situation in itself," he said, "is neither happy nor unhappy. It's only your response to it that causes your sorrow. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001795098
Never choose something because it's easier. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001796075
Ah, now I have learned how deep in the human heart vanity lies, vanity which is the other face of the fear of being unloved. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001805143
Good daughters are fortunate lamps, brightening the family's name. Wicked daughters are firebrands, blackening the family's fame. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001813033
But truth, when it's being lived, is less glamorous than our imaginings. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001832828
I want my books to force readers to recognise the fact that a woman is a human being just like them. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001836386
A well-meaning man, Dhai Ma liked to say, is more dangerous because he believes in the rightness of what he does. Give me an honest rascal any day! -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001848499
Looking down from the heights of Maslow's pyramid, it seems inconceivable to us that someone could actually prefer bread to freedom. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001860669
why man found himself driven to wrongdoing in spite of good intentions, Krishna replied, Because of anger and desire, our two direst enemies. -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes : pic 001879935
Because ultimately only the witness br> and not the actors br> knows the truth (Vyasa to Draupadi) -- Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni